Arsène Wenger is not known for giving his players a public rebuke, but after watching his team let themselves down with a flat and error-strewn performance at Queens Park Rangers, he did not even feel the need to find any excuses. A seven-match winning sequence came to an abrupt end in a 2-1 defeat at Loftus Road and Wenger accused his players of showing a poor attitude.

"Our performance was not good enough to win this kind of game. In the duels they [QPR] had a little bit of extra special commitment," the Arsenal manager said. "In the Premier League if you miss something on the commitment front you are beaten. That was the result. We can only congratulate QPR for their attitude and be unhappy with our own performance. It was very frustrating because they left us the ball and waited for our mistakes. We took the ball, didn't do a lot with it and made mistakes."

Asked if complacency had been an issue, Wenger was in no mood to disagree: "It is difficult to say but why not? We played against a team who fight for survival. We missed something today. The pitch was bad but that doesn't explain our poor performance. The performance of QPR explains our poor performance."

Wenger wants the manner of defeat to be a wake-up call for his team, who are still in third, three points ahead of Tottenham who play Swanseaon Sunday. "It is a good shock today to come back to what made our strength recently."

QPR were only too delighted to take full advantage of Arsenal's bad day at the office and each and every one of Mark Hughes's team played a full role in the performance. The QPR manager said: "To a man I thought we were exceptional."

The only sour note for the home club was the sight of one of the referee's assistants being struck by an object thrown from the crowd.